Writer: Brian Wood
Artist: Toby Cypress
Published by Image Comics
A stranger comes to town who is not what he seems. It's a fairly standard story, so standard in fact that it's no wonder that out-of-towners are so often regarded with a suspicious eye. In Brian Wood and Toby Cypress's The Tourist, Moss, an American ex-military man with a cache of stolen drugs hides out in a small Scottish fishing village. As these things invariably go, Moss falls in love with a local girl, jeopardizing his operation. When the bad guys catch up with him, Moss fights fiercely to protect the lives of his lady-love and her young daughter, at great personal cost.
And so on.
The Tourist dutifully checks each box on "handsome foreigner with a dark secret" list, but leaves out much of what makes stories in this genre intriguing; namely, a compelling protagonist. Moss is not charismatic enough, nor mysterious enough, to carry the story. Certainly he is not sufficiently likable to excuse his criminal background and multiple homicides. Narrating the story, Moss tells the reader that "I lost myself in the roles," but it never quite rings true. Moss always appears a distant character, regularly perpetrating acts of violence, rather in his own defense or his secret mission's. In short, the reader does not care about Moss's plight, and this makes for a mighty dull story.
Toby Cypress's stylized and abstract art style creates some beautiful tableaus and suitably brooding moments. The action scenes, though, bring to mind the rambling-rock noises of a slapstick cartoon, which is probably not the desired effect.
Brian Wood has enjoyed a good deal of success lately, with DMZ and Local breaking into the mainstream, and Supermarket standing as his best work to date. The occasional misstep must be granted, and The Tourist is a misstep.
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